


No Silver Linings

by AHeartForStories



Series: AHeartForStories' Febuwhump 2021 [16]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Feels, FebuWhump2021, Febuwhump, Gen, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III Whump, Hiccup Whump, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Mental Anguish, Mental Health Issues, cyborg AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:42:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29867247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHeartForStories/pseuds/AHeartForStories
Summary: Written for Febuwhump Day 17. Set in a futuristic/Cyborg AU, RttE-ish. If a body is mostly made out of metal, it can’t hurt, right? Hiccup finds that some part of him still hurts.
Relationships: Astrid & Fishlegs & Hiccup & Ruffnut & Snotlout & Tuffnut, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Snotlout Jorgenson, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless
Series: AHeartForStories' Febuwhump 2021 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137413
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	No Silver Linings

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "Field surgery"
> 
> Ah, yes, the 5th of March. Perfect day to post Febuwhump Day 17!  
> Decided to write a bit of Cyborg!Hiccup for this prompt, it's part of an AU I've been silently daydreaming about.
> 
> Constructive criticism is appreciated.  
> Enjoy!

Downtown in the shadows, a man runs through the alleyways. He’s fleeing, looking over his shoulders every other second to spot his pursuers. He sees no one, instead colliding with brick walls and a dumpster when he fails to see where he’s going.

He’s a big man, muscled, and with broad shoulders. He’s the kind of man who would make for an intimidating bouncer, but he’s the one on the run. There is something chasing him, something large, agile, and with firepower. Though he can’t see it, he knows it’s closeby.

As for the threat, it isn’t behind him, it’s above him.

The shadow of something large with a long tail and two wings leaps from roof to roof, appearing for only a glimpse from time to time as it stalks him.

Lungs burning, legs aching, the man keeps on running until he eventually ends up in a dead-end.

“Oh no!” He yells, fearing the worst now that he’s been trapped. He knows that they’re on him, knows that they’ll find him.

A second later, something heavy drops down on the ground behind him and his heart feels just as heavy as it drops.

The man whirls around on his heels and behind him stands a Night Fury.

He is snarling, wings used to make himself look bigger than he actually is, his pupils are small and the man has enough experience with dragons to know that that isn’t a good thing. But the young man sitting in a saddle on his back, he looks even angrier than the dragon, which is quite a feat.

He dismounts, swinging a leg over as he descends with grace, patting the dragon on the neck.

“I got him, Bud, you go see if you can spot others.” Hiccup Haddock tells the dragon he dubbed Toothless some years ago and leaves his side to approach the much bigger man.

Toothless snorts affirmingly and leaves the alley to let Hiccup face this one alone. On the way out, he gives his Rider one last glance before he leaves him completely and goes to search the area for more colleagues belonging to the man they’ve got cornered.

This one and those colleagues are Dragon Hunters.

Now alone and the sole thing standing between him and freedom, Hiccup closes the distance between them and the man is fearful. About two and a half of Hiccup could fit in a male this size width-wise and yet, he is the one who is scared while Hiccup is confident that he’ll be getting the answers he’s looking for.

The Dragon Hunter tries to make a run for it, hoping Hiccup is slow enough to avoid. He runs past him, attempting to push him aside only to find that Hiccup does not budge an inch. And instead of making a clean getaway by thinking he can somehow slip past him, the Hunter is grabbed by the arm by Hiccup and is pulled right back.

There is such strength behind that one pull that his shoulder is almost pulled out of its socket before he slams into the wall with his other one. He nearly slides down to the ground, only just stopping himself and regaining his footing.

The former lead Dragon Rider is even stronger than they say and he’s angry.

Noticing his target’s gaze moving from place to place in search of another way out, Hiccup begins to talk.

“You’re not getting away from me, not this time.” He tells him, coming to stand only feet away from the other.

“And you’re not getting anything out of me. I don’t tattle!” The Hunter wants to appear like he isn’t intimidated by the sight of Hiccup, someone both shorter and much thinner than him, but he is and his knees are quaking.

“But you know why we’ve cornered you?” Hiccup doesn’t receive an answer, but he doesn’t need to. “Good. Then I can get straight to the point.

He moves forward with speed and he pins the man against the wall, nearly breaking his back, his collarbone, and his neck with the force that he uses. An arm has settled on his throat with a fistful of his jacket in his hand, he uses just enough pressure to show that he’s serious.

Cold metal touches warm skin, creating goosebumps on his arms and making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Tell me where Viggo Grimborn is.” Hiccup demands to know, glaring daggers into the Hunter’s eyes.

“I told you, I’m not telling!” The Hunter is afraid, but still, he won’t talk.

There is something to be admired about sticking to one’s ideals and keep secrets even while afraid and facing imminent pain, but right now, it only frustrates Hiccup.

“Why not?! Viggo is nothing to you people anymore, is he? I’ve heard the rumors, you’ve all been turning your back on him because of me, aren’t you? Why won’t you just give him up to me and be rid of him?” Hiccup raises his voice as he asks. He used to be more patient than this.

“Because I’d still rather side with Grimborn than talk to some stinking Dragon Rider, especially if it’s you!” If the Hunter intends to make him mad, he’s succeeding.

“And how is that working out for you guys? I’ve been hunting you all down one by one for weeks, searching for someone who can tell me where Viggo’s hiding. You tell me where I can find him and I won’t have to chase you and your buddies. How is that somehow worse than living on the edge, knowing Toothless and I will find you eventually?” Hiccup questions the logic behind their thinking, tapping him on the chest.

The Hunter presses his lips together, jaws clenching, he’s still refusing to talk.

His continued silence makes Hiccup furious. It makes him furious because it hurts. Once again, they located a Hunter, they’ve hunted them down, and once again, they refuse to talk.

Fighting back tears of frustration, Hiccup presses harder on his throat. It’s only a tad, but it’s enough to show that his threat might not be a bluff. The Hunter gasps.

“You know what happened to me, don’t you? How I got to be in this body? That’s  _ all _ on Viggo!” Hiccup asks him if he knows and if he’s thinking about it, he’s not showing it.

“Next, I want you to know how easy it is for me to break bones now and I want you to know that that’s all on Viggo, too.” Hiccup informs him and watches as the Hunter’s eyes widen.

It’s the truth, it’s so ridiculously easy now and he needs to be constantly aware of his own strength. The only ones he hasn’t hurt yet are Toothless and the other dragons and that solely because they are capable of handling him.

The body he resides in now, he built it to be strong, sturdy, to last him a lifetime and help him exact his revenge.

“If you don’t tell me what I need to know, I’ll be forced to give you a demonstration.” Hiccup warns him and everyone knows he’s no longer quite as much of a pacifist as he used to be. Not after what Viggo has done to him, has cost him, and still makes him go through.

The Hunter fears he might actually go through with his threat.

“Hiccup!”

A third person joins them in this alley and Hiccup releases his hold on the Hunter enough to look at who it is, though he recognizes his voice.

“Snotlout?” He’s surprised to see his friend here, having believed that he and Toothless managed to shake him off. But then, he probably came here with Hookfang and Monstrous Nightmares are known for their speed as well.

Though, he can't see Hookfang right now, just Snotlout as he stands there, brows knitted together. The city isn't exactly a place where a dragon his size can comfortably wander around, especially with that wingspan of his.

Snotlout is out of breath. He might’ve had a ride over on Hookfang, but he ran the rest of the way. And it seems like he’s pushed himself.

“What… What are you… What are you doing?!” But he doesn’t wait until he’s caught his breath to talk. He does so, with or without air in his lungs.

The question catches Hiccup off guard more than he wants it to, as if he hadn’t thought to wonder the same thing. He doesn’t know how to respond, staring speechlessly at the other.

The Hunter does, however. When Hiccup’s grip on him relaxes enough, he rips himself free. Pulling out a knife, he stabs him and a cry leaves Hiccup as he lets go and stumbles back.

“Hiccup!” Snotlout shouts and wants to stop the Hunter, but he pushes past him, nearly throwing the other against a dumpster as he makes a run for it.

Snotlout wants to follow, he wants to follow very badly, but he ends up staying while the Hunter disappears around the corner.

A strange decision, he soon realizes, as Hiccup isn’t actually hurt, but by then, the Hunter is already long gone.

“Fuck.” He mutters, throwing his fists down. He turns to face Hiccup, who limps over to the wall for support.

“Are you okay?” Snotlout asks as he approaches, almost placing a hand on his lower back.

“I was. I was doing just fine until you showed up.” Hiccup jabs at him, holding onto the knife impaling his right hip, the blade torn through his pants. He can feel it in there and he can’t properly move his right leg because it’s obstructing the joint.

Snotlout doesn’t respond to it. He sighs and wants to get angry at him, but he can’t. It almost seems like he’s lost that part of himself since what happened to Hiccup happened.

He can’t get angry anymore, not at him. Not even when he does something as foolish as hunt Dragon Hunters down by himself. He saw Toothless leave.

So instead, he breezes past that accusation.

“Where did he stab you?” He asks as if that is a perfectly normal thing to ask, as if that question isn’t supposed to bring panic and fear with it. Well, it no longer does with Hiccup.

“Nowhere important.” Hiccup tells him as it’s only his hip. Now if he’d aimed for his chest, his throat, or his face, that would’ve made for an entirely different story.

Still, though he’s pretty much unharmed, Snotlout still feels the need to steady him. He looks down and sees what Hiccup has to work with after he removes his hand.

The knife is in there deep, up to its hilt, and the sight of it still makes him sick. And that while knowing that there is no longer any flesh, blood, muscle, or bone to damage or lose. That would be the state of most of Hiccup’s body, the one that he built to replace the one he’d lost.

“It doesn’t hurt. I feel that something is there, but it doesn’t hurt. Strange, how I still felt the need to cry out as if it did, huh?” Hiccup asks, his disappointment in not getting any answers palpable. He certainly doesn’t miss the pain, but even so, he still has mixed feelings about it.

“It’s a reflex.” Snotlout replies, remembering what Fishlegs used to tell them, when the other Dragon Riders were still around and not Gods know where.

He used to tell them how Hiccup will still react to fire the same way he always has, though he can no longer be burned. That he will still jump out of the way when glass falls, though he doesn’t have skin that can be cut. The reflexes to protect himself, they will still be there and probably for a very long time, too.

With a simple knife probably not doing much to Gronckle iron, Hiccup takes the hilt and pulls it out. He cringes while doing so, as if removing it hurts. They both cringe, but there is no pain and that makes this quick surgery easy and without risk. The knife slides out, still clean of blood.

Momentarily staring at the dagger, Hiccup lets it fall to the ground soon after.

“You don’t want to use that to track him?” Snotlout asks, pointing to it.

“Without a Nadder? Neither Toothless nor Hookfang have a sense of smell as strong as Stormfly does.” Hiccup sighs and sits on the ground, sliding down from the wall he’s leaning against. The “wound” doesn’t bleed, doesn’t even inconvenience him.

He’s falling into a little bit of a pit, elbows on his knees. He feels the pressure on both, but there is no warmth of flesh and no cold of metal. Just a presence.

When he pets Toothless, it’s just more of the same. Somehow, the dragon still enjoys his touches and that’s the only reason why he still gives him his scratches and pettings.

Pitying his once untouchable friend, Snotlout sits down next to him.

“At this rate, I’ll never find Viggo,” Hiccup speaks up after a beat of silence.

“Those Hunters are a bunch of stubborn bastards, but one day, one of them is going to talk, you’ll see. But we talked about this, we do this  _ together. _ ” Snotlout reminds him of the many, many talks they’ve had in the past.

_ “We’ll get them! The four of us, we’ll get them!” _

Truthfully, teaming up to go after Viggo was what Astrid explicitly told Snotlout  _ not _ to do. Hiccup was supposed to stay low, practically invisible, and lead a quiet life while the rest take down the remaining Dragon Hunters. She must’ve thought that the idea of getting to boss Hiccup around for once must’ve been appealing enough.

It was, but she hadn’t counted on the fact that he would get to watch his closest friend suffer in a way they don’t.

They don’t see the limitations Hiccup experiences, the nightmares, the tears, the nights without sleep, the frustrations, the days when phantom limb pain overwhelms him, he can’t even properly fly anymore!

At first, from age 15 onwards, Hiccup was only missing his leg, now he’s missing  _ most _ of his body.

He was given a prosthetic, a replacement body, but it was inadequate. Its movements were sluggish, it was heavy, it didn’t quite fit his build, he was shorter than he’s used to being, it lacked the pressure sensitivity that this one has. All in all, it was overwhelmingly clumsy and he felt like he was living in someone else’s body.

While the others are away on their mission, Snotlout, Toothless, and Hookfang personally watched him wither away, until the former two convinced him to use his smarts to take his body back symbolically, by building his own.

He’s been living in it for only the past month, but it’s been serving its purpose well. It can never beat a flesh and blood body, but at least he can get by like this.

At least, until they finally catch Viggo, the one responsible for putting him in this position. When that happens, and it will happen, Snotlout isn’t sure what Hiccup plans on doing next.

He is so determined to find the remaining Grimborn brother, it’s the only thing getting him out of bed every day. If he loses his drive again simply by succeeding, Snotlout fears he might lose it for good.

Noticing that Hiccup hasn’t replied to his reminder, Snotlout looks over to him, finds the frown, and sees how upset he is.

Tonight has been another loss and there’s no amount of encouraging words that will lift his spirits now.

“Hey, um, were you actually going to break that guy’s bones?” So he asks, genuinely wondering if he’s capable of that. Snotlout knows he certainly would be if he went through what he did.

But Hiccup shakes his head.

“Not unless it was by accident. Like yesterday.” He says, reminding Snotlout of the incident the day before.

They were running low on food and Hiccup thought he could go out and run some groceries. At the store, there was an older woman who was having some trouble with her bags and Hiccup decided that he had to help. He ended up accidentally breaking her wrist when he helped her to her feet and returned home understandably upset. He helped her to a hospital afterward and she didn’t seem like she blamed him, but Hiccup certainly blames himself.

It is one of many incidents that run him further into the ground.

He flexes his hand, wishes he had better control over his body than he does.

Snotlout can almost tell exactly what he’s thinking. They’ve been living closely together, even closer than before. They can talk about this later, but he believes that Hiccup is in need of a distraction and a change of scenery.

“So, uh, you wanna go for some pizza?” It’s the first thing that comes to mind, suggest they go grab some food. It’s nothing, it’s meaningless, but it gets Hiccup to nod.

“We should wait for Toothless, though. He shouldn’t be long.” He reminds him that his dragon has to rejoin them first.

“Yeah, of course. First Toothless, then pizza.” Snotlout agrees and with nothing else that can be said, they sit and wait in deathly silence.


End file.
